No-one is going to save Covehithe
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- Опубліковано 15 жов 2024
- On the south-east coast of England sits Covehithe: a little Suffolk village going back at least a thousand years. By the end of the century, it'll likely have fallen into the sea. Here's why no-one's planning to save it.
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This was the video idea that the AI suggested, but which I'd already filmed. I realise that it's also, technically, a cliff that refuses to be a cliff. Oh, and I did talk to one Covehithe resident (from several metres away), and they wanted me to make it clear: Covehithe is not a tourist attraction. There are no amenities, not even public toilets, and the roads in are already blocked by cars in summer to the point where it's a safety hazard. If you do stop by, then stop by on a day like the one I filmed: when it's cold, bleak, and foggy!
Ok
Hai
Ok
hi
Oh
"Why no-one will save covehithe, the village that will soon crumble into the sea"
*Tom takes a step to the right, revealing his wacky doomsday device*
It uses time energy, or "whenergy".
_"Let me show you... my Erosinator!"_
Fg
Ah yes, Supervillain Tom Scott strikes again
@@charleslambert3368 - Absolutely using that for whenever I need to refer to esoteric temporal energy in any stupid idea I have.
"This is miles of coastline, and they need to defend all of it constantly."
The Dutch: "Is that a challenge?"
The Dutch: "Hold my beer..."
No.
Is not a challenge.
/stomps out cannabis cig, rolls up sleeves.
Johan, start the scheve scuit!
@@JoshSweetvale thats step one. Then drain the land to get more land.
@@williamhuynh869 Uh, getting on the barge across the channel is step zero.
I've not mentioned a sea wall in my post, which would be the real step 1.
That's probably their exam just to pass kindergarten.
I used to live near Covehithe when I was like 8, and I learned how to cycle a bike riding up on the paths to the village and the church. As a kid, it used to be a fair ride from the church to the sea, but now it's maybe two minutes. Every so often they move the roadblock back. Sadly, there used to be a bird watching hut which has now crumbled into the sea that I used to go and visit as a kid. It's quite sad but unfortunately it's not just Covehithe, soon this will happen to most of the Norfolk & Suffolk coast. As Tom said, they put up a lot of defences around the bigger touristy towns, but these small villages like Covehithe (and others like Happisburgh in Norfolk) are just being left to fall into the sea. I get the reasons why, but obviously when you have a personal attachment to these places, it's much harder to let go.
Dang, dude...
Pronounced "Hays-bruh" for you non-local folk :) Yea, I don't know why either.
Thank you for this perspective.
Ko
This hurts the feels
ok the place might not be a tourist attraction, but with the sheep, the fog, the small farms, the impending doom and the church within a crumbled church it sure does have an aesthetic
Its almost Dark Souls tbh
right? It's kind of perfect.
Unfortunately for hopes of tourism, it's not unique. Wales alone has that aesthetic mastered.
Try Whitby.
I vibe with this village.
I cycled down to Covehithe with a friend last autumn and really enjoyed the church and the lost isolated feel of the place. It wasn't until we had our lunch on (In hindsight too close to) the cliff edge that we saw that the very spot where we were standing probably would be swept away in a few years. Watching this I realise it probably already belongs to the sea.
Probably not.
@@HOTD108_probably now.
Hello, we the people from the Netherlands offer to help. We can defeat the sea as you might know. What we want in return is simple : We want a mountain!
If you're asking for a mountain from the east of England, good luck with that 😆
Given that the only mountain range within England itself is slumping away in places, I think you wouldn't be very satisfied.
Your sea defences are related to flood prevention rather than erosion...but probably similar techniques. Much of East Anglia was drained and made usable by the Dutch, so thank you!
@@YellowPinkie parts have been deliberately re-flooded both in NL and in the Fens itself however because it turns out draining the land means they get lower wrt sea level, so keeping some parts wet is beneficial
Here in Austria we got plenty of mountains, we might even get you one. But then again, why would we need defense against the sea?
The fact that tom and an ai both came up with this idea is crazy
this correlation instills my suspicions that the real tom died years ago and this is an AI interpretation of what tom would be like in modern day
Tf
@@SA-bp5kw zq
The AI came up with the idea of a video on a city that will crumble into the sea, but that's not specific to Covehithe. There are hundreds of cities in the same situation. There's no way to tell how the AI came up with that suggestion.
@@EebstertheGreat It's a bit of a stretch to call it a "city". My village is bigger than that!
Mildly interesting fact: The street overlay on Google Maps extends over the coastline as on the satellite image, so does the coastline of the map only mode.
good catch
Me: _rushes off to look_
Seems worth mentioning that a nearby village has already suffered this fate - Dunwich. A bustling town of 3000 people in the 13th century, a series of strong storms meant it had mostly disappeared below the waves by the end of the 14th. A local legend says that the Dunwich church bells can, on certain low tides, still be heard ringing.
They joined their Deep One brethren in the sea
You mean Dunwich of The Dunwich Horror??
@@hydrosphagus9672 That one's in Massachusetts. There is currently a small village in Suffolk, inland of where the origininal town stood, that's also called Dunwich and It's possible that the one in the states was named after that, it's not an infrequent occurence, but there could also be no connection.
@@hydrosphagus9672 different dunwhich but the sunken dunwhich is used in a BBC podcast adaption of lovecraft.
Theres also the german Village of Rungholt which was lost to the sea in the 14th century.
"it is a cold and bleak day here" ...what, in the uk, in spring? the mind boggles
technically speaking it's not spring yet, although it is close
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH
Isn't it always cold and bleak, not to mention rainy, in the UK?
Sounds like a perfect day to this Californian.
@@safe-keeper1042always has been.
As a Dutch person, it is almost incomprehensible that someone would willingly surrender this much land, including an entire village, to the sea. You guys should spend more on coastal defences. You'd expect that to be top priority for an island nation.
The land is not lost; the sand that is eroded from the cliffs is moved down the coast and protects other towns. It's a natural coastal defense that's also keeping up with rising sea levels. In contrast to the Netherlands, which receive sediments from the Rhine, British rivers are too small to bring enough sediments to the coast.
Land is being built up on the west coast at about the same rate as is being lost on the east
@@tallthinkev Are you suggesting Great Britain is migrating?
@@Poldovico Yep, only real way we can get farther away from France
This is a lot like "Mårup church" in Denmark, except its graveyard already fell into the sea a few years ago. Ironically the graveyard was for sailors that died in the oceans in the past centuries.
That's actually really sad.. ;-;
But we did stop the erosion at Stevns after it had eaten half the church (and that was after the church had already been moved inland a few centuries back)
That's a bit of bitter irony for those ghosts.
oof the ocean is yandere apparently
So there were no actiual corpses in the ground to worry about?
I now have an emotional attachment to a small village that I’ve only just been introduced to for two minutes. I don’t want to see it go :(
sea it go
@Euro The Dutch would argue for other options.
dont look up doggerland
@Euro we could try our best to save the places instead of letting them die even if we fail at least we could say we tried
Well good news, you probably won't see it unless you're visiting at the time. I don't imagine it will be considered news worthy when it happens
Tom using Uno reverse card on the residents about making this village a tourist attraction. 😎😂
The nearby village of Dunwich once had a port that rivaled that of London's in size, many centuries ago. It was also the capital of the Kingdom of East Anglia. It now has a meagre population of less than 200 people. Dunwich's decline is largely due to storm surges that hit the Suffolk coast in the 13th century.
And up until emancipation reforms in the 18/19th century was a rotten borough and had sitting MPs despite this!
This place reminds me of Dunwich. Blytheborough up the way has had the opposite problem and silted up.
Isn't that the town from Lovecraft's horror? Sounds fitting.
@@sharpfang Same name, different country.
@@thursoberwick1948 - Indeed, and due to shingle and detritus washed down the coast from Dunwich.
Plot Twist: the town’s citizens are moving the town closer to the cliffs each year
WHY DON'T WE TAKE BIKINI BOTTOM, AND PUSH IT SOMEWHERE ELSE??
@@abbreviatedalex2418 That idea... may just be crazy enough... TO GET US ALL KILLED
🤣
it was a joke
@somedeveloperblokey This is not even worthy of a whooosh
@@thiccdicctony4790 weak bait, do better
I'd really like to see it before it's gone forever in 100 years.
- Me (who will be gone forever in 50-60 years)
damn
😭💀
Good point. Maybe Covehithe will stop by to visit me someday, too.
Every people need to visit each other
@@samapakisan3392 r/ihadastroke
Tom! Your description says Covehithe is in Sussex, but as you mention in the video, it's in Suffolk. :) Great video though - there are a few places in west Wales under Managed Retreat policies now too.
I noticed that being one of those tourists that visit Southwold regularly.
What a noob
I must admit, I was wondering they had renamed Birling Gap - a small village is Sussex that is going to vanish due to coastal erosion.
Tom fixed it
You've caught the AI's mishap!
Just a short distance down the coast from Covehithe, there's Dunwich, a village that used to be a town. It had 6 large churches and two monasteries in the middle ages. Now it has 2 small churches and a chippy. It is clear evidence that the erosion along the East Anglian coastline has been going in for a long time. I remember walking the beach a Benacre as a child, and seeing ruins of houses sticking out of the cliff. Crazy to see.
it's similar along the Hornsea coast, between the Humber Estuary and Flamborough Head, just South of Scarborough. There's remnants of tiny villages, with roads that literally can be seen cracked and crumbling over the soft clay cliffs. Bizarrely there's still people living in some of these places, while others, like Bridlington, is a sizeable town with plenty of holiday static caravan sites.
The beach cafe in Dunwich was one of the best chippies I'd been to.
@@adm_ezri Ever seen the lost forest at low tide near Hornsea? I saw it as a child, in the 70s.
@@rog2224 I haven't, sadly. Sounds like an interesting place, however.
Really, truly, thank you for taking the time to show us these amazing places. I live on a tiny island almost as far south as you can get without being in Antarctica, and the likelihood of me being able to see these places myself is very slim. These videos give me a chance to see them.
South like Tierra del Fuego, or not THAT south?
You say that as if you were stranded on this island. At least there seems to be high speed internet access.
where is that?
New Zealand ?
@@HunterShows Fun Fact: Most people are "stranded" where they live because travel is expensive.
There's a touch of irony in saying in the same video "They don't want to be a tourist attraction" and "You'd better stop by while you can"
@I WANT ŞĘX !!! SEE MY VÌDEÓ !!! Go to horny jail
@@mcandelaria8769 But putting every horny person into horny jail together wouldn't make them even more horny?
Yes, there might be some purpose on this video :)
@@enricoleite9556 indeed an oversight.
@@enricoleite9556 you'll need a hose to cool them down
“Covehithe is gone in 100 years” Such a simple yet a significant statement!!
"Someone will have to move the graveyard" hit me
@@Kapin05 Meh, fairly certain that a few bodies in the sea aren't a massive change.
@@DrZaius3141 wont be pleasant to look at though
thats actually made me think why they find bodies in the sand on beaches sometimes during digs of sorts etc or even public sometimes do, maybe older graveyards set on land or near beaches many centuries back before that have been lost to the same process.
H
This sounds like it will be “A Cliff That Refuses To Be a Cliff” in 30 years.
It’s a cliff one day, next day it’s a graveyard. Another day it’s your neighbor’s backyard and then back to a cliff!
Get the Obamas to buy a cliff-top property and the erosion will stop almost overnight.
@@terencejay8845 i dont get the joke?
@@generalgrievous2202 ahh you don't?? its so obvious though
heres it for you interior smooth brains
simply put obama is god duh
@@generalgrievous2202 one year later did you get the joke yet I need to know too
@@arandomcommenter412 i still dont
Well, there we have it: The cliff that refuses to be a cliff.
Dude I watched this video before the AI one and had to come back for this joke. Well played.
Oh, Cliff! Sometimes it must be difficult not to feel as if. You really are a cliff! When fascists keep trying to push you over it! Are they the lemmings, or are you Cliff? Or ARE you, Cliff?
This ai thing is getting scary
Tom Scott's grandchildren: Is the Most Southeastern Part of Britain Still There?
As long as Britain exists, it will have a "Most Southeastern Part"... might not be the _same_ most southeastern part.
@@maighstir3003 The sun never sets on the Most Southeastern Part of Britain!
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 😬
Well, Covehithe is close to Southwold, and Southwold is in Suffolk, so quite a long way from.the most South Easterly point. Indeed, not in South East England at all. It's East Anglia.
If I know anything about the ocean, it's that when it's giving you trouble you just call the Dutch. They laugh in the face of Poseidon.
Anything water, call the Dutch!
"God may have made the world, but the Dutch made the Netherlands"
The Dutch, literally the lowlands manage it by flooding. The situation on a cliff, the literal opposite of the lowlands is entirely different and much more difficult, if not impossible to manage sustainably.
@@ranro7371 Then what if we just take an excavator and make it low!
0:40 I love the map maker's differentiation between St. Andrews Church and 𝔖𝔱. 𝔄𝔫𝔡𝔯𝔢𝔴𝔰 ℭ𝔥𝔲𝔯𝔠𝔥
I am so glad you pointed this out lmao
There's a ghost of some cartographer watching over us with pride that the bit they snuck into a map centuries ago is still here.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 possibly
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 I am satisfied knowing that we potentially made a ghost of a cartographer giddy
The same is happening four places in Northern Jutland, Denmark: Nørlev. Nr. Lyngby. Løkken and Lønstrup. And in the worst of these houses are already collapsing into the sea. There is hefty debate about what if anything should be done, and who has the responsibility; i.e. the homeowners, the municipalities, or the state.
There is even a grave yard that is eroding and dogs occasionally run around with human femurs and German tourists take home human skulls as souvenirs. This has been happening for over twenty years, and there are no plans to move or excavate the graves. I honestly don’t know why.
There is also a very famous site from the late Mesolithic that is eroding away. You can go by the beach and pick up buckets of 7000 year flint if you wanted to. At least some archaeological attention has been given, but far from enough.
So you aren’t alone, Brits. The North Sea makes fools of us all.
But on a lighter note some fairly modern lighthouse was moved instead of demolished. Made loads of headlines, so at least some journalists were happy.
Germans removing skulls?!!? eeeeeuuuuw
I didn't know Denmark was a post apocalyptic wasteland
Hmmm, maybe it's my chance to go skull hunting......
@@neues3691 It's just for you tourists.
Someone has got to film a horror movie there while there still exists.
You know, sometimes I think I must have been an archeologist in a past life or at the very least missed my calling in life. Because when it comes to old ruins like that church, I cant help but to always be in awe over them, to wonder who built them, how they were built and to also feel a bit sad when I hear they've been neglected or will soon no longer exist.
It's good to care about old ruins. I hope someone has recorded the history of the church, even if the church itself cannot be saved. It struck me as surprising that a ruined church like that wasn't a tourist attraction. I thought that sort of thing was quite popular with tourists.
there's still time!
We literally studied this at Geography A-Level
dang, wish they told us about it
is there a way to make it so i just can’t see your comments
@@bigkippa why
I did it for Geography GCSE. I live near there.
e
As a Dutchman I'm tempted to offer to protect that piece of land. We dont like giving to the sea.
We've got a lot of land just north of there thanks to your ancestors! Still have the windmills to prove it 😉
A comment! 😉
partly untrue, there is some moving away from only building protections against the sea, and other management methods, like potpolders or even (re)creating saltmarshes, e.g in the Hedwigepolder.
OK Deal. Give us Covehithe, and take Westminster.
Covehithe may be being eaten away by the sea, but material washes up somewhere else. Further south are the old Cinque Ports, five ancient major ports for trade and military. Today only two of them are on the coast. The others have had their harbours silted up, New Romney now sits a mile from the coast.
"Why don't we pick up the town, and put it somewhere else?"
~Patrick Star
You jest, but I do wonder if that is what will happen with the church.
@@Croz89 I sure hope they save the church. It'd be a shame to ruin some good ruins.
some buildings can be moved. that church might just be to heavy
they did that with my town. there was a hydroelectric scheme and they needed the valley for a dam so they moved the whole town. there is footage of houses on trucks moving up the road to the new site.
People of Covehithe: We just want to be left alone. Really, sacrifice our land, destroy our buildings, just leave us alone. Nothing to see here anyway.
Tom Scott: Hey, fellas! This village will not exist in a hundred years! Come see it!
I feel bad for that farmer, each high tide means his land is slowly being ripped away from him.
Like inflation on your savings
on a brighter note it gets easier to do his job each year
That would be gone anyways due UN agenda 2030 of removing populous from countryside to mega cities. On the positive note, UK is eroding little by little, not only by ridiculous amounts of political corruption, but physically as well. So in time UK is no more and no more UK loisenses to breath being demanded. On negative note...this takes way too long and cancer will spread else where.
THE CLIFF THAT REFUSES TO BE A CLIFF
Hahaha thats an instant classic
Suicidal cliff. Suicidally cliffy.
Reminds me of that BBC documentary they made on a town called Hemsby, where they filmed someone's house going into the sea on a stormy night
Yes I live in the village next to Hemsby and I thought the two sounded very similar.
they are very similar, no rich people have holiday homes there.. like Southwold. So the sea can take them..
Only about 20 miles up the coast
Damm i just watch that yesterday
In XIV century in Trzęsacz (northwestern Poland) a Gothic style church was constructed about 2 km from the coastline. Due the abrasive processes, there is only one wall still standing. It's a popular local tourist attraction.
I grew up about 10 miles from Covehithe and remember visiting the beach several times as a kid, when I went back there with friends as a teenager I was blown away by how far the cliffs had moved; literally about 20 metres in less than 10 years. Every time I've gone back since it's dramatically changed.
Those fields are still farmed by the way; if you go at the right time you can see a narrow strip of wheat right against the edge of the cliffs that was too sketchy to harvest.
Seems silly to farm that close. Seems it would help erosion.
Place: we are not a tourist attraction
Tom Scott: hey 3.4m people, this place is going to vanish soon^tm, see it while you can
Try this: alt-0153™
Stampede Ho!! But only on cold, miserable, drizzly days, when no one else is about...
@@donaldstanfield8862 my understanding of english weather implies this is about 364 days of the year
@@qwertzy121212
BAHAHAHAAH!!
I've visited w incredibly good weather, I was lucky!!
@@qwertzy121212 That's a trifle harsh. It's only like that 350 days of the year - there's also two weeks of frost to complement the day of Summer (I think that was scheduled for 23 June this year).
Gave Covehithe a visit today and the fence at 0:58 isn’t there anymore, it’s been pushed back to where that fence on the right ends. Fascinating stuff.
Came here since seeing the news about Hemsby falling into the sea. For Covehithe this isn't taking thirty years. I imagine it could easily be less than half that before people are wondering where it has most of it has gone. The power of the sea.
A few years ago, online I bought this quaint little house at a place called Doggerland. I have no idea why it was so cheap, I'm going to visit it this summer.
I'll send pictures!!!
Remember to bring your scuba gear... you'll need it if you mean to pop to the shops or the pub ... or anything for that matter.
huh... i guess what ben sharpiro said about selling your house if it floods DOES work... 😛
Watch out for all the Mammoths!
@@olipolygon I guess we found aquaman
Fun fact: Dogging was invented in Doggerland.
I've lived in Suffolk my whole life and Covehithe is one of my favourite places to walking, even visiting just a few weeks apart you can see the cliffs shift and the trees at the top of the cliffs even occasionally fall down onto the beach... It's such a hidden little place it's really lovely to see it talked about outside of Suffolk, great video! :)
This is just north of Dunwich (most of the old town is 500 metres out to sea), which is the destination from London, of the annual summer 200km overnight bike ride 'The Dunwich Dynamo'. It boasts that because of coastal erosion, it gets shorter every year!
My parents live a stone's throw from Covehithe, but thankfully a stone's throw inland (they're in Wrentham). When I'm back home visiting I always take the dog for a good run down the beach. It's a fantastic part of the world and great to see Tom visiting our neck of the woods... even if the video was a bit of a tearjerker!
They will have beachfront property one day. Good investment.
They need to update Google maps, that road you filmed from above extends into the sea. Wouldn't want to be following a sat nav down that road on a dark night.
Reminds me of the office clip where Michael drives into a lake because a GPS told him to
Tom said that they install roadblocks so it probably won't be a problem
So you'll just drive into a concrete block instead of the sea. That's... better, I suppose.
@@Twannnng generally people look in front of their car when driving so as not to hit solid objects in front of them. GPS also doesn’t tell you the location of every car on a road. It’s up to you not to hit them
Might be a new Broomway.
Pisa in Italy had the opposite problem. Its pier was filled with soil from river Arno about 550 years ago
"why no-one will save covehithe, the village that will soon crumble into the sea" what a cheerful note to start the week!
“It is a cold and bleak day here”
It's chilling too!
It's Tom compensating for being overly cheerful while blowing things up last week. Brits are only allowed a certain amount of good humour before we self combust.
@@lucie4185 Oooo even more explo- *boom*
@@lucie4185 true, true
Buy a nice house in the inland now and in just 100 years you will have a nice house on the coast. That´s a great increase in value. Good thing to invest in
Until your house also ends up in the sea haha
@@networksims4357 Make your house a ship?
Of course you have to correctly time it with your live expectancy.
Provided you either put it on stilts, buy a houseboat, or have a lot of sandbags.
Good luck explaining that to the bank and insurance company
I love how short and to the point these videos are.
love these types of videos, where you cover small towns, telling stories that surely everyone in town knows, stories that are actively effecting their entire lives, entire future, and yet are virtually unheard of for anybody else. good stuff as always!
I would love to see you do a video about a food forest. I know there are a few good permaculture ones in mainland uk.
Amazing places: Kiruna in Sweden, a town that is now being moved because it sits on top of a huge mine. Could be an Idéa for a future video.
As someone who has lived in Kiruna, I can confirm this. It is an amazing story.
Ja! Super intressant.
6-1
A church inside a church sounds cool.
Yo, we heard you like Christ so we put a church inside your church so you can serve Christ while you serve Christ.
We have to go deeper.
It's like quantum christianity, it's church all the way down
Even churches have their version of "The Onion".
I wonder if there's an even smaller church inside that one again.
"This town isn't a tourist attraction, and the residents don't want it to be"
But I'm gonna make it one anyway.-Tom
I live a little further up the coast in Lowestoft and despite having a ton of money spent on sea defences, we have lost a large section of the beach to the sea. It seems to have been particularly bad this winter with a probably 5 or 6 feet of beach lost on the North Denes, which has exposed loads of oil that was buried I think in the 70s or something after a tanker spilled.
I actually live kinda close to Covehithe. Just a point - the description refers to it as a ‘Sussex Village’ when it’s actually in Suffolk.
Dang Suf- prefix.
Dang, a Tom Scott video on the same day as a Jay Forman video. It’s like Christmas but better.
There is this town in northern denmark where i the same stuff has happened. There is more of an effort to defend the coastline, though some of the defences have been critiziced with enviromental/zoological concerns. There is also a large area of summer homes/cottages that are abandoned or demilished. There is also a church that i visited once, that is now long lost and a lighthouse that was moved innland about 100-200 meters some years ago. I wanted to reccomend this topic to you, but didn't due to the whole only UK thing, but seems you kinda did anyways.
The name of the town is Lønstrup. Its one of my favourite towns overall as well.
"Tea shop on the beach" is the most British thing I've ever heard on so many levels
And surprisingly common in that kind of town
Soon it will be tea shop in the sea
Usually just called "Tea shop on the beach".
@@Chicklo11 Low tide tea shop.
@@Chicklo11 Littoral tea shop
"Filmed safely, following all Covehithe law"
Covehithe-19
Which means that probably in 100 years, or, owrst case scenario, in only 30, this video will belong to the sea
At least Covehithe should last longer than the pandemic.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 dont bank on it
IDEA for @Tom Scott: I think you would be fascinated about Kiruna and Gälivare/Malmberget. They have huge mining projects there that are slowly moving towards Kiruna and Malmberget. However, the Swedish law forbids living straight above mining tunnels. They are now moving a large part of Kiruna and moved most of Malmberget to Gälivare so that the mining can go on while still respecting this law. We walked through some ghost town parts of Malmberget which have not been moved but cannot longer be lived in, and it was incredibly interesting to see that the mining industry there can afford to move whole towns and still make a fortune. (I am not halfway as good at describing the situation as you would be, but I thought I'd give it a shot for your future inspiration)
Reminds me of old villages in Germany being torn down for coal mining. They don't dig tunnels, the coal is close to the surface so they dig giant pits. But not only villages, old forrest too...
The Dutch: "I volunteer!"
I mean do we really need zeeland?
I do feel like the dutch could figure something else
@@Jesse-de7dw Do we really need America
I feel like Patrick would handle the solution better.
Not Volunteer, but "We'll do it, if you pay!" :D Just seems more likely
Tom: It is a cold and bleak day.
Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?
I live in Lowestoft just north of Covehithe. It's a rather small and unassuming place down the beaten track from Wrentham. Used to travel to work in Southwold almost daily passing it, never really knew it existed until one day my partner took me there for a lovely beach walk.
As Mr. Scott said though, if you ever happen to do make it this way, it would be best to find parking closer to Wrentham and walk down the winding back roads to Covehithe considering it's a very narrow strip of road and no parking amenities at all close to the cliff edge!
Hire some Dutch, England
They'd just steal the ground and make a mountain out of it anyways
underrated
We have before. They drained the fens for us a few hundred years or so back!
I live in Cambridgeshire In Oliver Cromwell's day the work had begun of reclaiming the land The Isle of Ely is one of the most famous Today stands High and Dry from the surrounding fields Thanks to the Dutch Drainage Experts Who if Britain doesn't wake up soon won't save us this time The call has already gone out A Sea Barrier around the outside of The channel approaches the north end or the Irish sea and between the East coast of Scotland to Norway Otherwise their will be no United Kingdom but a northern Greek Isles
This feels like a great case study for my Coastal Engineering course - been covering erosion and sediment transport, it's actually very interesting!
Just put asphalt along the coast. It is done in so many places I not even surprised to see it anymore when I go somewhere. It is a very effective method. Only downside is that going to the beach is a little more unpleasant...
What a heartbreaker. To have nothing to leave to your children is bad enough, but to know your home is virtually worthless.....ohhhh.....😞 I live in Norfolk, and almost considered retiring to the coast, where the same thing is happening. Dodged a bullet there, then!
All homes will eventually be destroyed. Everything is temporary, even your children.
@@pluto8404 what a cheerful way of putting it!
@@pluto8404 was that really necessary
That cliff refuses to be a cliff.
Ok I DID NOT EXPECT TO SEE THIS
Underrated comment
@@JKTCGMV13 it was!
@@JKTCGMV13 Yes, yes it was.
DUDE
It wants to be a beach.
On the opposite side of the country in Harlech, the sea used to come right up to the castle but now it is a long way inland. The same applies to Rye in Sussex.
And this is only 1000 years. Imagine the towns, villages, and maybe even cities that simply just vanished with time.
everything that is was and will be will simply vanish with time
Don’t you mean 100?
Nothing is meant to last, even Earth will be gone in around 4 billion years. Next after that the Universe itself will expand into nothing in around ten thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years (or one Googol)
@@4TheRecord In 4.5 billion years our galaxy will collide with Andromeda. In 200 billion years the universe will die by vacuum decay.
That's because what we consider space'the universe ' is actually some aliens advanced computer case.
Beyond 'the universe' is the actual world we just cant see it being dumb simple sims.
So if I am understanding correctly, if we build coastal defense for Covehithe, then the Ocean will likely stop "attacking" them, and instead will start eroding Southwold? Interesting, didn't know it worked that way.
Yes
The energy from the tides and currents is lessened by eroding cliff faces and beaches in Covehithe so if they are defended the energy will increase at Southwold
This problem has been solved already but the English seem to be too arrogant to learn.
There's a good reason many of us locals don't encourage tourists to Covehithe. Its quite a hazardous area if you don't understand the safe way to walk by the cliffs or know to get off the beach before the tide comes in and washes you away. Please include a caveat about checking tide times before going on the beach in your description Tom about the potential hazards.
Dutch and Flemish public TV did a 'around the North Sea' series and did talk to the locals. They're.. Quite cross.
This is really sad, and I was angry until I realized why they weren't saving it. You can't preserve everything in physicality. I hope they are preserving it in pictures, at least.
@@a.wadderphiltyr1559 it's not "Mommy government" it's the representatives of the people from Covehive
0:41 Its amazing how in the 1905 map it says "St. Andrew's Church" in Roman font and then "St. Andrew's Church (in ruins)" in Gothic font next to it
Skipsea sands there's a village there that is currently in the sea, people's back yards are currently going in and buildings can be seen in the sea, you should've included it
Why? There's scores of them, Happisburgh being the most famous, probably because of its tricky name...
Tom somehow each video ceases to amaze me with completely random facts that I’m probably never ever gonna use
There's a caravan park in Yorkshire called Skipsea Sands with very much the same problem, I used to go every New Year growing up and recently learnt of their coast eroding away to the degree where many of their paths and walking trails are now cordened off or just gone altogether
I mean, people won't save Jakarta sinking into the sea, and that's a capital city of 10 million people.
It doesn't have flood defences?!
@@davidz2808 It did, but those sank too.
Most of the damage due to rising sea levels will be done, ironically, to third world countries in the south east and the Indian subcontinent
@@davidz2808 They are sinking because the groundwater is depleted. The sinking of the land in combination with rising sea levels is change the flooding levels at a extremely rapid pace. The government has decided to abandon the city instead of trying to figure out how to stop the ground water depletion which would be the significant thing to do to save the city.
actually jakarta in indonesia are doomed because of their gov. policies, and corruption, and many more if you come and visit and see with your own eyes and hear with your own ear. people in west said the water level rises because of the north and south pole everyday deposit their discarge on the ocean but there in jakarta, it is not even sinking because of the natural occurrence but it is because of their own hand that did not care about absolute anything but money which lead to this. Well if you somehow denied this, then probably ehh, maybe you are one of the guy that pumping water from underground somewhere on jakarta.
This reminds me of a coastal town here, in California, U.S.A., called Pacifica. The coastline has been eroding for years. Parts of the area I grew up in is slowly disappearing.
Maybe the fog is just covering it?
I live not too far from Covehithe and have been there many times. Lovely place as is all the Suffolk coastline. Well worth a visit especially outside of summer when it’s quieter.
This sounds suspiciously like a video script that an AI would randomly generate for Tom Scott. I don’t know what is real anymore.
The AI is a prophet. This is the cliff that doesn't want to be a cliff, fulfilling the prophecy.
Which are meant to sound like the ones Tom already had. So it just sounds suspiciously like a video script made by Tom.
I feel like growing up in Suffolk the threat of coastal erosion was always in the back of my mind. When I was in primary school I remember going to Dunwich Heath just down the coast from there and having the teachers strike fear into us that all we knew would crumble into the sea. The threat followed me further afield too as we used to visit relatives on the Isle of Wight, and would stop at a theme park called Blackgang Chine which too is slowly eroding into the sea. Most places and many objects can surpass a human lifespan and i think we take their permanence for granted, so when regions where I grew up are at risk of being lost before I die, I find it quite unsettling.
Good video. It's a fascinating place. Easton Bavents, just up the coast from Southwold is being eaten away at a similar rate - a cold war bunker that was inland, has gone, and all that shows that it was ever there, are some cables hanging out of the cliff face. They were, last time I went - probably gone now.
This happens everywhere all the time. It's a conceit of humanity that the way it is today is the way it has always been and how it will always be. NOTHING is the same as it was 100 years ago. And most places will be unrecognizable in 100 or a thousand more. The world as it is now or even as it has been for 2000 years is just a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a blink of the eye to the universe.
Exactly. We read in history how things were different but then we're surprise when things change!
At the risk of sounding pedantic, Suffolk is on the east coast, not the south-east. I live a few short miles from Covehithe! There are many quaint little villages in the area.
I'm guessing someone from the north has a different definition of south. It's always funny to see people grumpy about relative positions based on the centre defined by their perspectives.
I go camping nearby every year, i know about Dunnwich but i didnt know about Covehithe. We'll have to pop along to see it!
Logicly, if the coast line has moved, then the land that the government owns is actually under the water now, and the owners of the farmland that is being eroded are the actual owners of that coast. Unfortunately I'm sure there's some overridden government interference that prevents that from being the case.
I'd assume the former farmland was subject to compulsory purchase.
it depends on how the erosion happens, if the beach is being taken away and the cliffs are collapsing and filling in the empty spot, then the land owners presumably still own that land, it just moved to a new location. But, if the beach is being left untouched (at least, no more touched than normal) and the cliffs are being taken away by the tide, then the government still owns the beach, since the land would have technically moved upwards and the cliffs are now somewhere in the ocean
@@mickys8065 Under UK law the beach between high and low water marks belongs to the crown.
Is it not possible to plant some trees/beach grasses to prevent erosion? Like 4-5 staggered rows. Bare cliffs crumble much quicker.
I go to Southwold every year and have visited this little village. If you are interested in coastal erosion its worth studying Dunwich as well.
Balancing out last week's cheerful video are we Tom?
Only real OGs remember living in Doggerland.
Nobody lives in Doggerland, you just visit with a few friendly strangers and leave.
@@NorthernSeaWitch i lived there once
This is the same as a little village called Happisburgh in Norfolk. Has a lighthouse that you can go up and look out off.
On Google Maps, there is a shadow of the road that used to be there extending into the sea...
The argument that adding break waters will quicken the erosion elsewhere is a bit logically incorrect.
Since it will depend on the type of break waters used.
Yes, if the breakwater simply redirects all that water to a new location, then yes, that new location will see more erosion.
The simpler type of breakwater is just a hard ramp, typically made of concrete, this directs the energy back out into the ocean itself. Not along the coast.
Another type of break water ensures that any waves coming has their energy absorbed in a controlled fashion. This can be something as simple as putting some boulders on the beach that the water has to navigate between, wasting its energy on the twists and turns between the rocks. (Most of that energy simply gets turned into heat.) Here one would though need a foundation to ensure that dirt and sand doesn't get washed out over time.
One can also look into piling a wall, and then just placing wave absorbers further out into the water. Where the wave absorbers can for an example be used to generate electricity. This both stops erosion and also gives a renewable source of energy.
In the end, the erosion can be stopped locally without effecting other areas. (Though, energy absorbing break waters will reduce the energy getting reflected back out to sea, and this will generally reduce erosion elsewhere as well, all though likely negligible since the ocean is huge....)
It may not quicken the erosion in the technical sense, but the material being eroded from around the area will no longer be carried down the coast to other locations. Deposition will no longer be greater than existing erosion, which will look like erosion has increased. Or the reduction in wave power may reduce or reverse longshore drift in the area, silting up areas that had been scoured clear by existing forces. New Zealand's coastline is full of examples of one location's erosion control inadvertantly affecting another location.
@@ilfardrachadi2318 That is true.
Though, it is also a question of how much of Britain is simply just eroding away and getting washed away by ocean currents and the like, never to really return to the coast again.
Though, I can't really agree with the statement in the video that other places would need to heavily invest in major improvements to their own already existing water breaks. It isn't like the sea will suddenly get a lot worse just because someone else installed a water break down the coast a bit.
@@todayonthebench this happens everywhere someones stops their land eroding which makes someone elses erode instead. Its not the change in currents but the reduction of sediment in the currents. We have up the west coast of Auckland, New Zealand a massive slug of sand slowly migrating north, so some areas that used to be coastal are now inland as the sand came from an area down the coast, but one day that will run out and then the coast will start to retreat again as the sand moves further north, In northland is our giant sand graveyard where it will eventually end up then who knows what happens after that.
Skipsea (& Barmston) in East Yorkshire is in the same boat as this. Few miles down the sea is Hornsea, few miles further up is Bridlington.
Someone told me they used to play on the old WW2 bunker when they were little and it was a bit inland, now it's firmly out to sea.
It's really sad, especially as brid and hornsea have both had new barriers put in place and yet the little villages are left to await their fate.
Makes me wonder how many villages and towns over the millennia that we've never heard of have met a similar fate.
A haunting thought
From what I recall under the English channel they found full settlements from thousands of years ago when the water levels were lower. Same as the Mediterranean before it became a sea
And then there is the aral lake, where the land shows ship wrecks.
Atlantis